After spending way too many hours on Kate La Vie’s blog, I decided it was finally time to start updating my space. I adore how Kate decorates her entire home. The muted, pastel colours, the beautifully displayed framed prints, the way she effortlessly lays out her coffee table books, the lot. There’s just something so calming about the way she’s decorated her whole home.

Since my walls are furniture were already white, it was pretty easy picking a colour theme – white, gold/copper and green. Totally unique, and nobody has ever thought of that *please detect my sarcasm*.

In the future, I think I am going to have a reshuffle with the furniture, but since it was a nightmare planning it all out in the first place, I’ve decided to delay this for a while. The main thing that’s important to me is having space, and to not make it feel cramped.

Declutter & Organise

One thing I mentioned in my monthly goal’s post was how I was I really needed to de-clutter and organise. Honestly, I was slowly getting around to it, but when I stumbled across Mrs. Hinch on Instagram, it became such an easy task.

I started working in sections. My makeup collection, wardrobe, drawers and cupboards were the first places I decided to work on. Then, I moved onto the places where past Brooke just threw things, in hopes that future Brooke would sort out one day.

The only way I’ve found that works for me is to empty out that section I’m working in. Once it was all empty, I started to put everything into piles – throw away, donate, keep, and move elsewhere. Where I live, I have a lot of charity shops that accept donations. Even if you don’t drive, a lot of the time they’ll come and collect your items for free! I always try and deliver the stuff myself, but if I ever have any bigger pieces, I’ll ring them up and arrange a date for them to collect.

After I established what I wanted to keep, I gave that section a good ol’ clean out and got myself some storage boxes. Poundland and Pound Stretchers are my go-to for storage. Cheap and cheerful, but they get the job done.

Being brutal was the only way I managed to get rid of a lot of stuff. Anything that I thought ‘Oh I might need this later…’ was thrown out. When decluttering my wardrobe, I kept repeating ‘Would I buy this now if I saw this in a shop?’ and that seemed to work really well for me. I’m forever keeping hold of clothes just because they’re comfortable, but half of the time I would never purchase them if I saw them in a shop. Don’t get me wrong, I still did keep some hoodies and jumpers that are totally not my style, but I know I wear them a lot around the house in the colder months.

Cleaning Up

Going back to Mrs. Hinch again, she really inspired me to start cleaning my room properly. Obviously, I was tidying my room, but I was never actually really cleaning it. I’d run around with the hoover once a month, and that was about it.

After a day of watching her stories and highlights on repeat, I jumped into the car and got myself a whole list of cleaning goodies.

Currently, I have two ‘Narnias’ as she likes to call them (homes for your cleaning products). One in the bottom of my wardrobe, and one inside of my cupboard (pictured above).

I think the reason why I never really properly cleaned my room was because I always looked at it as a massive task. Not anymore. Sophie Hinch shows you how cleaning doesn’t have to be boring or a task, and actually only takes a few minutes a day. Perfect for a lazy cow like myself.

You can find her favourite cleaning products on her Instagram, but these are my essential products to have:

Zoflora Concentrated Disinfectant– Been around for donkeys years. I use it neat on my skirting boards, windows and wooden doors, and also diluted on surfaces and fabrics. There’s so many different scents as well, and they’re all dirt cheap, meaning you can get yourself a few different ones without breaking the bank.

Duster – I didn’t realise how dusty my room actually gets before owning a duster. I picked mine up from Pound Stretchers, but there’s also some branded ones around the shops. Personally, I think the cheaper version from Pound Stretchers works just as well as more expensive types.

On The Walls…

All over Pinterest are beautifully designed rooms, and I could never work out how they did it. It wasn’t until I was having a look on Instagram when I realised I was missing some wall art. With my walls being painted white, they looked rather bland with nothing on them. Some people can nail the minimalist look, but as hard as I tried, I could never.

Originally, I wanted to get one of those huge, round copper mirrors that look absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find one that a) was in my price range, and b) one light enough that I could put up on the wall myself without having to bug my neighbour for the 80th time this year.

After having a mooch around my local garden centre, I came across these beautiful hexagonal golden mirrors. They only cost me under £15 for the pack of 3, and I’m absolutely in love with them.

I don’t tend to use them as actual mirrors since I have a huge wall length mirror, but I adore the vibe they give off.

Whilst I now knew I wanted to get some prints for my walls, the task was finding ones I actually wanted, and not have them and the frames break the bank.

A quick search online, and I came across desenio.co.uk. I’d seen so many people talk about this site before and now I know why.

Desenio have such a huge range of affordable prints and frames, all in different colours, sizes and styles. In all honesty, I spent a good couple of hours having a good look at all their products.

After irritating my mum with questions like ‘what do you think of this one?‘, ‘what one do you think matches this one the best?‘ and ‘but what size do I get?‘, I finally picked and ordered my new prints and frames.

Desenio have a section on their website called ‘Perfect Pair‘. There, you can find pairs of prints that match together perfectly. Since I went off the idea of having 5 or 6 little prints next to my bed (I fidget around a lot in my sleep, so I was worried I’d end up knocking them off), I came across one of their suggested ‘Perfect Pairs’.

The Pastel Palm No1 and Pastel Palm No2 are very similar in colours. Both have a pale pink background, and each feature different angles of palm trees. Since I already had black frames for my other prints, I decided to choose copper frames for the both of them. Dotted around my room, I have other rose gold\copper accents, so once again, I feel it really helps to bring everything together.

Tips & Tricks For Finding The Perfect Prints

To help me decide on what size prints to get, I stuck pieces of paper together and blue tacked them onto my walls. Not only did it really help to get a feel for the size, but it also helped me decide on how to hang them.

Figure out what colour theme you want to go with. Check what colours you already have in that room, and stick with them or colours that go well together.

Pick prints that you enjoy looking at. Don’t just get any old thing to fill up empty space.

If you’ve not got any room to buy new prints, don’t worry! just switching the position of your old ones or changing the frames can help a lot.

Desenio very kindly sent me over a discount code (not affiliated!) to share with you all, just incase you fancied giving your home a re-vamp. The code “brookeclarke” gives 25% off posters* on all of our sites between September 18th and 20th 2018.
*Except for frames and handpicked-/collaboration posters.